Saturday, February 02, 2008

Obama rally goes wrong?

At the Target Center In Minneapolis, supporters of Barack Obama describe piles of faeces, knee-high, after the toilets overflowed and people were forced to relieve themselves on staircases.

At least seven bodies are scattered outside the city's Target center.

People rallying for Obama say they have been robbed of their humanity.

"I don't treat my dog like that," 47-year-old Daniel Edwards said as he pointed at a woman who lay dead in her wheelchair outside the Target Center.

"We pee on the floor. We are like animals," 25-year-old Taffany Smith told the Los Angeles Times, cradling her three-week-old son in the stadium.

Up to 20,000 Obama supporters have been corralled into the building.

This is where they were told to come, but the authorities were woefully unprepared for the arrival of such numbers, who include the very young, the very old, and the very infirm.

Pervading stench

For hours they have been without adequate electricity, sanitation, or food supplies waiting to be taken from what many describe as a scene from hell.

All who have been inside the Target Center speak of the pervading stench of human waste.

Amid the deteriorating conditions, horrific stories are emerging.

There were two reports of rape, one involving a child, while police at the scene said there had been similar reported incidents since Senator Edward Kennedy lent his support to Obama.

Others described what it was like to live among the dead.

"We got dead bodies sitting next to us all day. I feel like I am going to die. People are going to kill you for water," Thomas Jessie, a 31-year-old roofer, told the AFP news agency after spending the day in the Target Center.

Keep on coming

And the slow rally has only contributed to tensions. The head of the city's emergency operations, Terry Ebbert, warned it had become an "incredibly explosive situation".

Heat and exhaustion proved too much for some in the queue "This is a national emergency. This is a national disgrace," he said.

At the Target Center, fighting and gunshots broke out in the long desperate line of people waiting for the chance to exit one of the school buses deployed to take them to see the Democratic contender.

Medical evacuations from the Target Center on Thursday were temporarily disrupted after a gun shot was fired at a TV helicopter.

Meanwhile people continued to arrive, many wading through water to see Obama. He is so inspirational, they have no choice.

By Saturday evening, 11 hours after the rally began, the stadium had 20,000 more people than it did at dawn.